Commissioners ask downstreamers to help farmers

Weld County commissioners have mailed letters to about 30 downstream senior water rights owners, requesting their consent to allow farmers in Weld County to pump restricted groundwater wells.

The move comes about three weeks after the commission declared a disaster emergency for Weld County and urged Gov. John Hickenlooper to authorize the pumping of curtailed irrigation wells for 30 days and provide relief for local farmers dealing with record-low rainfall, record-high temperatures and limited irrigation water ” and who face millions of dollars in losses.

However, at the advice of Attorney General John Suthers, the governor denied the Weld County commissioners’ request.

Hickenlooper and other state leaders have since been calling on cities to step up and provide excess water to Weld County’s struggling farmers. But, according to city officials across the area, they don’t have any water to spare because they face their own uncertainties.

Weld County commissioners on Tuesday morning sent letters to water rights owners in the Sterling, Fort Morgan, Merino, Julesburg and Brush areas, asking them for help.

The groundwater wells at the center of discussions were curtailed following the historic drought of the early-2000s because the state determined that the pumping of the groundwater depleted downstream surface flows in the South Platte River. Augmentation plans for groundwater wells ” a state-approved plan designed to make up for depletions to the river ” became more stringent and more expensive, preventing many farmers from getting their wells to pump at full capacity again, or at all in some cases.

But now, farmers in Weld County say they need those wells pumping because other sources of water will run out soon, if they haven’t already.

Furthermore, farmers believe the lack of groundwater pumping and the over-augmenting has led to historically high groundwater levels, which in recent years flooded basements and destroyed crops in the LaSalle, Gilcrest, Brighton and Sterling areas. The wells must pump, local farmers say, to bring down those high groundwater levels, which also have caused concerns for groundwater contamination, since groundwater levels in some areas have been high enough to interact with human waste in septic systems.

While local farmers and officials have been stressing how badly the groundwater wells are needed to pump, Hickenlooper and his staff have said he doesn’t have the authority to turn the wells back on because it would go against the state’s prior-appropriations doctrine, which has determined how water is used in the state for more than 100 years.